Pretty Baby
by texas angel called tori
Summary: The fear was gone, the Dark Lord too, but with happiness there is always a price, and she paid it. Ginny Weasley wasn't looking for love, in fact, she told it to sod off, but love never listens does it?


Pretty Baby - Chapter One - Prologue  
  
Pretty baby, Don't you leave me Why can't you see? You're the one I belong to Pretty baby Stumbling on reasons that are far and few I'll be alright And I'll sleep sound As long as you keep coming 'round  
  
Pretty Baby  
  
- Vanessa Carleton "Pretty Baby"  
  
She wasn't for him, and he definitely wasn't for her, but somehow, but  
some miracle, they survived it all, and each other. And after they  
live through everything, they realized they were in love.  
  
***  
  
Falling in love was not on her agenda. She had spent six years confessing her undying love for the - boy - who - had - to - live, and she was determined never to do it again. After her third year her affection for him was waning. After her fourth, it was caught between non - existed and the residue of hope. By her fifth, she was working on making it go away, and succeeded when he rejected her.  
  
Virginia Weasley was sixteen, and in her sixth year of wizarding  
school, her second month of that sixth year to be exact. She was five  
feet tall with dark auburn hair that she had a love/hate relationship  
with. Her namesake made her out to be the sweet, lovable, baby of the  
red haired clan, and she had spent two years trying desperately to  
reinvent herself. By now, she was convinced she had.  
  
She was at the top of her class, with a 110 average, and a dueling  
ability that was unmatched, except for higher years. She was proud of  
her various titles, and not at all upset with the fact that Ron only  
had another year of school with her. Life was easy. With the great,  
and yet unbearable rise and fall of the Dark Lord she had become a  
women. She had taken womanly responsibilities, fighting along side  
with her family and friends, and she had lost a great deal. Now, there  
was no dark lord to worry about, there was no danger, and there was no  
Harry.  
  
Harry had been ravaged by the last Voldemort - led attack. His mind  
was, as Ron put it, fried. He sat day in and day out staring into  
space. They had tried to visit him, but found it only caused pain and  
sadness. Everyone agreed that if Sirius had been there, if only for a  
day, that Harry would have made it. But there was no Sirius. Harry had  
given up so long ago, even before his final showdown with the Dark  
Lord, that he went into some dark, lonely, place in his mind, never  
again to come out.  
  
So they mourned. They had all lost family, friends, but the whole  
world had lost Harry. Ginny had cried for days, not being able to help  
herself. Very slowly, and with her family to help, had she come alive  
again. Ron and Hermione were never the same, but no one expected them  
to be.  
  
And as Harry died, mentally at least, so did she. Her light, her  
innocence that had some how survived the great war, was now tarnished  
with the burden of Harry, her brother's best friend, being alive and  
yet so dead. She gave up on love, and promised, swore to herself that  
she would never even try to find love again.  
  
At the delicate age of sixteen Ginny gave up on love, and found it all over again.  
  
* * *  
  
He had not been in the Great War. His father in prison for most of it, he was able to bloom into his own person. It wasn't to say that he became kind, or even less cruel, but on the inside, deeper than all of that, he had bloomed. He still didn't like muggles, but he didn't hate them either.  
  
His mother was there, trying her best to raise him without the help of her husband, and his distant family had hid him away during summers, making it safe for him to stay neutral through out the war. With the haven of Hogwarts, and the very generous man who ran it, Draco Malfoy became a man.  
  
He lost his respect for the dark side after witnessing the initiation process of a fellow classmate in the summer of his fifth year. Balise Zabinni had raped a young girl. The Death Eaters surround him in a circle cheered, and Draco could not. He watched as the girl screamed and tried desperately to fight back. He blood pooled around her where Zanbinni had roughed her up. After the Death Eaters had finished with, and killed her, they departed. Draco stayed in the wooded area that the initiation occurred and vomited everything left in him.  
  
He learned Potions, and Transfiguration, and even bothered to listen to Hagrid, but his greatest lesson in life was that dark July night where he had witnessed a murder. He fought the dark side, within himself, fiercely, and even talked with Dumbledore, as much as he could stand at least. He was not above taunting Harry Potter and his gang of merry men, as he called them, but he never said a word about when Potter when insane, when he never came back from his last battle.  
  
In fact, Draco Malfoy, under a thick cloak, had been at the vigil held for Potter. He would never admit it, not even to his own mother, but he actually said a prayer for his enemy. Not so much for the prat he couldn't stand, but for what that prat had fought for. No one, not even the ever present Rita Skeeter, had seen him.  
  
And so, Draco Malfoy, not a good boy, but not a Death Eater, lived at Hogwarts. He took classes, ate meals, and ignored most everyone. Love was not in sight, and he hadn't intended for it to be, but love never listens does it? 


End file.
